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MMDA eyes Pasig River sludge for Manila land reclamation

COOPERATION. MMDA chairman Danny Lim proposes to use the soil build up from the Pasig River for Manila's many reclamation projects.

MANILA, Philippines – It’s supposedly a win-win for the city of Manila and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA).

In a press statement Monday, July 10, Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada said he is in talks with MMDA chairman Danilo “Danny” Lim about using the sludge of the Pasig river for his reclamation projects.

According to Estrada, the idea was pitched by Lim, and he welcomed it.

“If we can help, why not? Once it (Pasig River) is dredged, it will also benefit us since the river passes through our city,” the Manila Mayor and former president said.

The Pasig River has been in need of dredging for a long time. Waters have become shallow from the Pasig's rising riverbed caused primarily by silt and sludge. From 12 meters, the river is now just two meters in depth on average.

Lim, in turn, announced that they had consulted experts who affirmed that waste collected from dredging activities could be used as “infill” or fillers for land reclamation.

Once the dredging works start, Lim explained, it will be hard and costly to find a place to dump the millions of cubic meters of silt to be excavated from the riverbed, thus the idea of using it to fill up land reclamation projects.

“Mawawala na ang masamang amoy d’yan, na dahilan kaya ‘di pina-patronizeang atingPasig River ferry (The bad odor that prevents people from using the Pasig River ferry will be gone). We need to use the Pasig River as a transport network to decongest our major thoroughfares,” he added.

Manila's reclamations

Estrada believes in land reclamation as he already has 4 projects in the pipeline.

The others are the New Manila Bay International Community (407.42 hectares), the controversial Solar City urban center (148 hectares), and the P7.4-billion expansion of the Manila Harbour Center in Tondo.

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Welcome to Rappler, a social news network where stories inspire community engagement and digitally fuelled actions for social change. Rappler comes from the root words "rap" (to discuss) + "ripple" (to make waves).